Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Hastert and Kulongoski

Am I going to be the first to point out the obvious parallel?

In Washington DC, Speaker Denny Hastert is under the gun because he may have been made aware a year ago of some inappropriate messages Rep. Foley sent to congressional pages. Lots of folks, most of them Democrats, are calling for Hastert to resign.

The parallel?

There is credible evidence, reported in the Oregonian and the Willamette Week, that in the early 1990's Governor Kulongoski was told about Neil Goldschmidt's rape of a 14 year old girl, and not only did he do nothing, he appointed Goldschmidt to the State Board of Higher Education as soon as he became governor!

Kulongoski, of course, denies that he knew about the rape.

According to the Oregonian, the person who "told Ted Kulongoski about Goldschmidt's secret repeatedly during the early 1990s, including when Kulongoski was state attorney general" was Fred Leonhardt, Goldschmidt's speechwriter, who was told the secret by none other than Bernie Guisto.

In addition, in 2001, when Kulongoski was planning his run for governor, Leonhardt told the secret to Kulongoski's senior political aide Steve Schneider. Schneider denies it, but Leonhardt recalls the precise time and place he told him.

If Denny Hastert is asked to resign because he was told about some inappropriate e-mails and did nothing, shouldn't we apply that same standard to Governor Kulongoski?

After all, prior to the Goldschmidt scandal breaking, Ted Kulongoski was basically the figurehead for the second Goldschmidt term as governor. NOTHING happened without Goldschmidt's approval. His business partner, Tom Imeson, was head of Kulongoski's transition team. E-mail records show that time after time Kulongoski cleared key decisions with Goldschmidt.

If Ted Kulongoski looked the other way after hearing that his political patron was a child molester, isn't that something we should know? Shouldn't Ted Kulongoski be required to answer the same questions that Speaker Hastert is answering?

I think it is time for this question to be asked, investigated, and put to rest.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. Turnabout is fair play. Who can make Kulongoski address the question? Saxton can't bring it up.

Anonymous said...

The only "evidence" that Kulongoski knew is the claims of one man: Leonhardt. There are multiple sources implicating Hastert. Both WW and The Oregonian have probably exhausted all their leads trying to tie in Kulongoski. The story is almost 2 years old now and nothing new.

Nice try but you should probably concentrate your SwiftBoating elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

Oh yeah the Oregonian really "exhausted" all the leads....

They were all over this story, going to the end of the earth to get the truth about Goldschmidt's "affair."

That was right before they editorialized as to what a tragedy it was that the state of Oregon would no longer benefit from his visionary leadership.

Is Leonhardt's story credible? Of course it it. Has it been exhaustively scrutinized by the Oregonian? Yeah right!

Hastert might have been told about e-mails that were perhaps overly familiar but which had no sexual content. What exactly is he supposed to do about that?

Kulongoski may have been told about his primary political patron raping a 14 year old girl.

Mick you sure are incurious about the latter.

Anonymous said...

The piece goes to leadership. Kulongoski has no leadership, and was not expected to have leadership when he was elected. The leadership was to be supplied by the man behind the curtain: Goldschmidt.

DEMOCRATS can't you see the obvious... and it's so bloody obvious...it sceams...Kulongoski is a failure and we can't aford four more years of this crap.

PLEASE BE HONEST WITH YOURSELVES. If only in the small hours of the night in the privacy of your own minds.

Rob Kremer said...

coyotesmy...:

Nobody anywhere has ever suggested that Ron Saxton knew anything about Goldschmidt's secret.

But we DO have a credible person who says he repeatedly told Kulongoski and his senior aide.

Did Ron's law firm provide services to Goldschmidt? Yeah, no doubt about it. No reason at all to think that Saxton ever knew anything about the rape.

But trying to smear him with it, as you do, is particularly clumsy.

Anonymous said...

Even if Saxton did know it was probably disclosed under attorney client privilege, meaning that there was nothing he could do about it.

Kulongoski, on the other hand could have done something, like not appointing the pedophile to the State Board of Higher Ed.

Anonymous said...

Don't worry about Coyotesmy...; I've read his handywork before, it's much like Torridjoe(if you know the moniker). He writes with confidence, but any clear and careful analysis of his reasoning(if you can call it that)can be dispatched with ease along with a sharp kick in the ass to boot.

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